SCUBA now is available right here at Sandcastle on the Beach. Instruction and diving from St Croix's friendliest dive instructors are available to all hotel guests. With PADI certified divers, SCUBA will train you at the beginner or professional level right on the beach.

St. Croix boasts the largest living reef of any Caribbean island as it is almost completely surrounded by a barrier reef. The Island Conservation Effort (ICE) is a non-profit organization that maintains 52 moored dive sites along those shores. This reduces the need for dive boats to anchor and risk damaging the reef. Careful dive operators can take their divers to hundreds of dive sites in addition to the moored ones.

A spectacular wall runs along the entire north shore. In most places the wall begins at about 30'- 40' and drops off to 13,200 feet! Davis Bay , Northstar, and Cane Bay are at the western end of the north shore diving and can boast the steepest wall in the world. In places it's like looking down an elevator shaft. There's plenty of coral and sponge life down the wall and a lot of marine life all along the top.

Another couple of miles east is Salt River, the only site in America where Columbus actually landed, which he and his crew did in 1493. Both the East and West walls are spectacular dives that are frequented by both dolphins and sharks and border a canyon that's 300' deep. The west wall sites (Columbus Bluff and Grouper Grotto) have superb topography with a series of mini canyons you can swim through while the east wall's sites (Russ' Rock and Barracuda Bank) have an incredible amount of marine life, sponges, coral, and gorgonia.

Between the sites that have been mentioned so far and the town of Christiansted the walls are more gradual and shallow so they make for good second dives. This area is along Long Reef and there's a lot of good sites regularly dived in that stretch. It's not unusual to see rays (including Spotted Eagle and Mantas), turtles, and of course a couple of zillion colorful tropical fish. These reefs are ALIVE!

There are five wrecks located off the west shore of the island There's a large container ship, two tug boats, an oil barge and a small cargo ship that have all been sunk for dive sites. The bow of this ship is in about 70' and the propeller touches the sand at 110'. Adjacent to is is the newest wreck, the tugboat Coakley Bay. Just south of these wrecks are the other three wrecks which are in shallow enough water to make a good second dive. South of that point there are many almost virgin coral reefs in only about 30' of water. They stretch along the entire west end of the island.

Finally the west shore was host to the Frederiksted pier which has been called one of the world's best macro dives. The new pier has a lot of life on it, and some of the outer pilings from the old pier (their called dolphins) are still there and have incredible life on them. It's not unusual to see seahorses, frogfish, lobster, and a lot of eels there, especially on night dives.